


The Daisy Queen

by La Reine Noire (lareinenoire)



Category: Henry VI - Shakespeare, Henry VI Part 1 - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Stories within Stories, lady friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-19 00:19:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4725674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lareinenoire/pseuds/La%20Reine%20Noire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three conversations that Margaret of Anjou never forgot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Daisy Queen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redletters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redletters/gifts).



> As per the recipient's request, this fic incorporates material from Nancy Goldstone's _The Maid and the Queen_ (2012) about Yolande of Aragon, although I've also attempted to fudge the timelines to fit the weirdness of the play. Thanks so much to my beta-reader. Title is a play on the name "Marguerite," which translates to "daisy."

_i. Capua, 1438_

 

When her lady mother came to her sunlit chamber to announce that they were returning to France, Margaret wept.

 

"But I don't _want_ to go! I _hate_ him!" she hissed. "Why must _he_ stay without us?"

 

The lanky, bearded man who had arrived a bare few weeks earlier and announced himself as her father was a stranger to her. The boy accompanying him, Margaret's eldest brother Jean, was equally unfamiliar, a loud, boastful and irritating interloper who insisted on complaining about anything and everything. It was too hot. The servants were lazy. The food was funny. He'd spent several years as the duke of Burgundy's hostage, he was at pains to remind them at least once a day, and Duke Philip set the finest table in Christendom.

 

Margaret didn't give two figs about the duke of Burgundy and said as much.

 

"You don't know _anything_ ," Jean spat. "You're just a stupid girl anyway. I'll marry you off to whomever I want when I'm King of Sicily."

 

"You'll do no such thing," a man's voice snapped from the doorway. Margaret turned to find her father standing there. He'd shaved off his beard since arriving in Capua and though she still couldn't remember him, he seemed somewhat less forbidding without it. "Margaret is your sister and you will treat her with respect."

 

"But Papa--"

 

"Go now, Jean. I wish to speak with your sister."

 

Though Jean opened his mouth to protest, he gritted his teeth and stalked from the room. Margaret eyed her father suspiciously as he settled in one of the cushioned chairs near a window. "Come, Margaret. Sit with me."

 

She obeyed, hands clasped in her lap. "My lord father."

 

"You've come to love it here, haven't you?"

 

Tears pricked at the back of Margaret's eyes and she nodded, unable to answer at first. "They cheer for Maman in the streets and the maids always bring us oranges whenever we ask for them."

 

"They'll cheer for your maman in Anjou, you know. I can't promise you oranges, I'm afraid, but your maman is much beloved wherever she goes," said her father with a fond smile. "And your grandmaman will be there. Do you remember your grandmaman?"

 

Margaret shook her head.

 

"Your grandmaman, Margaret, is the cleverest woman I have ever known. And," he added, lowering his voice, "she's cleverer than most men too."

 

"Truly?" Margaret asked, curious despite herself. She'd known her lady mother was clever--nobody could speak five words to the Duchess of Anjou without realising that--but her grandmother was a mystery. "Jean says I'm stupid."

 

"Well..." Her father frowned. "Your brother is still young. He'll learn wisdom as he grows older."

 

"But he's older than me."

 

"And already you're cleverer than him," her father said. "But don't tell him that. It'll be our secret."

 

Margaret smiled and held out her hand to him. "Promise."

 

 

_ii. Saumur, 1440_

 

Margaret's grandmother was both as clever and far more terrifying than her father had implied, but Margaret decided within an afternoon that she adored her. She lived in a magnificent castle high on a hill overlooking the city of Saumur and the glimmer of the Loire River, and that castle was filled with rich tapestries and other grand gifts from the King of France, the Holy Roman Emperor, and countless other lords.

 

It had been decided while Margaret was still in Capua that she was to marry the son of the Count of St. Pol, but when she mentioned that to her grandmother, the Lady Yolande gave her a wry smile and shook her head.

 

"You are meant for greater things, little one. I will make you a queen."

 

Margaret blinked. "But the King of France is already wed to my aunt, Madame."

 

"Not of France, my dear. I will find you a king worthy of you." She studied Margaret for a moment. "First, however, I will teach you how to be a queen. Your mother is most accomplished, but she has enough to concern herself with her lands and your brothers. She has entrusted you to me, and I will train you up just as I trained the King of France."

 

She did not elaborate then, but later on, Margaret learned that King Charles had spent a number of years under the Lady Yolande's tutelage. His own mother was not spoken of in Saumur, but eventually Margaret heard from visitors' gossip that she was a wicked woman who had sold France to the hated English and disinherited her own son.

 

But the Lady Yolande had a different story. "She was poorly trained, Margaret. She was taught to be pretty and decorative, which would have been well enough if the king, God rest his soul, had been like his father."

 

Instead, however, the late King Charles VI had lost his wits and, shortly afterward, his kingdom when Henry of England bested the flower of French chivalry on the field of Agincourt. And his queen had stood by and allowed it to happen, giving her daughter Katherine's hand in marriage to that same Henry, whose son now sat the English throne and claimed that of France through right of blood and his father's conquest. There was no question of who Lady Yolande believed to be the true King of France, but it was not something of which she could speak freely.

 

Margaret swore to herself that when she was queen--for now she knew she would be, though she knew not of which kingdom and waited only for her grandmother to tell her--she would never allow such a thing to happen to her realm.

 

 

_iii. Le Mans, 1442_

 

Her grandmother was dying, though Margaret refused to believe it at first. How could the Lady Yolande be dying when just two months earlier she and Margaret had entertained an embassy from no less than the Holy Roman Emperor himself and Lady Yolande had hinted that Margaret's betrothal to the Count of St Pol might be broken so she might become an empress?

 

She had worn a gown finer than any she'd ever owned, blue velvet and cloth-of-gold edged with ermine, her red-gold hair falling loose across her shoulders. But shortly afterward her grandmother had taken to her bed and scarcely left it. And now the days were growing shorter and the nights colder.

 

On the night the Lady Yolande made her last will and testament, Margaret waited silently in the corner of her bedchamber until she was summoned to her grandmother's bedside.

 

The Lady Yolande reached into a casket beside her bed and drew out a necklace of pure gold with a jewelled pendant wrought in the shape of a woman with the tail of a serpent. "You recognise this, do you not, my dear?"

 

"The lady Mélusine of Lusignan," said Margaret without hesitation. She had heard the story many times, for it was one of her grandmother's favourites--the tale of a clever, powerful sorceress who married a young man, made his fortune, and was ultimately betrayed by him. "But you're not going to die, grandmaman. You're meant to dance at my wedding, remember?"

 

Lady Yolande smiled. "I wish that more than anything, dearest Margaret, but sometimes God wills otherwise. But this is for you. I've noted it in my will, so don't let anyone take it from you." Margaret's hand tightened around the ornament. "And remember, my girl. Remember the story and its lessons."

 

"I will, Grandmaman. I swear it."

 

Her grandmother died two days later. Several weeks afterward, her father returned from his seemingly endless campaign in Sicily, having been chased once more from the kingdom that was supposedly his by the King of Aragon. He looked decades older than when Margaret had last seen him, his face heavy with defeat. But he brightened a little when he saw Margaret.

 

"My beautiful girl. Your grandmother did well by you, didn't she?"

 

"She taught me to be a queen, Papa."

 

"And a queen you shall be, _precieuse_. It is simply a matter of finding the right king."

 

***

 

In the end, the king was not of her choosing, but she looked into the earl of Suffolk's eyes and vowed to herself that she would rule them all. Just as her grandmother had intended.


End file.
